Backyard Beach Party

Girls ages 8-12

Bring the beach to your backyard or basement for a seaside day the birthday girl will never forget.

Decorations:

Creating the coast at home is no easy task, but well worth the effort.

1. Spread tarps on the floor to cover the party area.

2. Pour a layer of white sand over them. (Sand can be purchased at your local gardening center.)

3. Fill a kiddie pool with water (it's the next best thing to the ocean).

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4. Dress the space with fake palm trees, a beach umbrella, beach chairs, and an inflatable raft. For extra ambiance, play Beach Boys music. If you are holding the party indoors, plug in heating lamps to make it feel like the dog days of summer.

Activities:

Have guests dress in bathing suits and flip-flops. Offer plastic sunglasses, sunscreen, and beach towels when they arrive. Play games such as beach volleyball, badminton, paddle ball, or horseshoes.

2. Frost half of the cake on a diagonal with light milk chocolate frosting to create the beach (mix white frosting into the chocolate to lighten the color). Frost the remaining half with ocean-blue frosting.

3. Pipe white frosting over the blue to make waves and the shoreline.

4. Decorate the ocean with Swedish fish and jelly beans (to resemble rocks), and the beach with drink umbrellas.

5. You can also cut fruit leather into small rectangles to use as beach towels.

Party Favors:

Fill a small canvas bag with beach-themed items such as sunblock, sunglasses, flip-flops, a plastic spritz bottle, a plastic sports bottle, a baseball cap, a handheld fan, and sand toys -- after all, you're never too old to build sand castles.